This election cycle is so civil compared to four years ago, as far as T2J is concerned. Man, was that a headache...go read through the archives. Actually, no...don't. ;-)

To me, the VP picks on both sides are pretty pathetic attempts to grab votes from the other major party. Are there really that many senior citizens who will now vote for Obama because he picked a VP their age? And are there a lot of younger women who will vote for McCain because he picked who he did?

Is this country really that shallow? These two campaigns seem to think so, and that doesn't make either of them appealing to me...

Joe Satrini, and Do the Stu: "Strange Beautiful Music" - I actually looked at an older LP I was adding to my site and the label twigged my memory...

The back of the 12" Big Bad Moon single (Issued under Relativity in 1989) has a copyright notice: "C 1989 Strange Beautiful Music/ASCAP". And it appeared on a lot of the older stuff of that time.

So I guess there was an epiphany or an event that caused Joe to name an album "Strange Beautiful Music" - perhaps the company was closed or something? Joe?

IDOL:

Guys, I didn't think of the idol idea, I was only thinking of some names for it.

satrini - thanks for the good vibes for my pop. He's still in the hospital, but each day he's healing a bit more. It's gonna be a long road. We hope they got all the cancer.

jamie, I'm taking a break before my pop comes home. We might have to do all his errands for a bit, but he wants nothing more than to get back to his old self as quick as possible.

Austin, Obama picked Biden for his foreign affairs knowlege, which is one of Obama's weak points. I think it's a good match. As for McCain's pick - ha! I'm not even gonna go there. You said "are people that shallow?" I work with one woman who won't vote for Obama because she says he's cocky and she doesn't like his attitude (aka: he's black). Another girl at work - I asked her if she was gonna vote. She said yes. I asked her for who. She said Obama because she wants to see a black man in the white house. Both women are white. Yes, people are that shallow. If they're playing the race card, they'll play any card they can imagine. The reasons I've heard from people who say they won't vote for Obama are 8 put of time times because of his race. It doesn't matter that he's half white. His skin tells another story. 2008 and people are still pathetic. They don't even bother to learn who the candidates are or what they stand for. They prefer rumors, gender and race. I say go to their websites and LEARN about the candidates and make an EDUCATED decision ffs!

Mahavishnu, get it right...

OBAMA, Barack, a Senator from Illinois; born in Honolulu, Hawaii, August 4, 1961; obtained early education in Jakarta, Indonesia, and Hawaii; continued education at Occidental College, Los Angeles, Calif.; received a B.A. in 1983 from Columbia University, New York City; worked as a community organizer in Chicago, Ill.; studied law at Harvard University, where he became the first African American president of the Harvard Law Review, and received J.D. in 1991; lecturer on constitutional law, University of Chicago; member, Illinois State senate 1997-2004; elected as a Democrat to the U.S. Senate in 2004 for term beginning January 3, 2005. bioguide

Sounds like he's more qualified than our current president if you ask me.

elpp, sorry you and your family are going through a rough patch. Hope everything works out soon.

Drag The Waters

Can I get a HELL YEAH!!

CLARKY - really enjoyed listening to Maria's tune. Made me think of her and will each time I listen to it.

Thanks Bro

Al, you need to make videos like this!

I posted this back in 2003 - just rediscovered it and thought I'd do so again.....

A successful rancher died and left everything to his devoted wife. She was a very good looking woman, and determined to keep the ranch, but knew very little about ranching, so she decided to place an ad in the newspaper for a ranch hand.

Two men applied for the job. One was gay and the other a drunk. She thought long and hard about it, and when no one else applied, she decided to hire the gay guy, figuring it would be safer to have him around the house than the drunk.

He proved to be a hard worker who put in long hours every day and knew a lot about ranching. For weeks, the two of them worked, and the ranch was doing very well. Then one day, the rancher's widow said to the hired hand, "You have done a really good job and the ranch looks great. You should go into town and kick up your heels."

The hired hand readily agreed and went into town one Saturday night. However, one o'clock came and he didn't return. Two o'clock and no hired hand. He returned around two-thirty and found the rancher's widow sitting by the fireplace. She quietly called him over to her.

"Unbutton my blouse and take it off," she said. Trembling, he did as she directed.

"Now take off my boots." He did so, slowly.

"Now take off my socks." He did.

"Now take off my skirt." He did.

"Now take off my bra." Again with trembling hands he did as he was told.

Now," she said, "take off my panties." He slowly pulled them down and off.

Then she looked at him and said, "If you ever wear my clothes to town again, I'll fire you on the spot."

roo - Strange Beautiful Music is still Joe's publishing company...it's mentioned in the PSATMOR liner notes. It never stopped being a company, so that can't be the reason Joe decided to use it as an album name. This is interesting...I wonder what made him finally use it.

And you probably know this, but for those who don't...the phrase is a play on a line from Jimi Hendrix's Third Stone From The Sun ("strange beautiful grass of green...")...

There are unfortunately still a lot of people who will never vote for a black man to become president, but I'd also say there are a lot of people who are against an older white male being president. I'd say both points of view are equally wrong.

As I said before, I have issues with both major parties so I'll be voting for someone else.

I agree with you that people should learn on their own and make an educated choice, but it's hard for me to vote for Obama or McCain when it seems like their campaigns are treating everyone like sheep. I think I see this more on the left than the right, but maybe that's just because the Democrats have been getting more coverage recently. I work at a newspaper, as you know, and it sucks that I have the impression the press elected a Democrat as president in the midterm 2006 elections...but that's another issue.

To me that election was no different than the Grammys, Oscars, or any other awards show...people are afraid of making decisions on their own and they need their opinions to be validated by others...

Weird dream last night.

Passion & Warfare is obviously a classic instrumental album.

But a good begining with the guitar hero aspect of Vai could be the David Lee Roth album: Eat Em & Smile.